Mint+Cinnamon experience: somewhat better than Ubuntu. At least it looks "familiar". Droid Assault worked (through VirtualBox no less!) Couldn't figure out how to get OpenJDK 7 to be the default JVM - even installing it wasn't exactly easy.

User interface, out of the box, is slightly ugly still: fonts too large by one or maybe two points. Window edges still hard to grab with mouse. Welcome screen horrible compared to Ubuntu. Colour scheme is quite nice though Ubuntu's is slightly classier. Overall though I'd say it's rather better than Ubuntu for being familiar in its ways rather than alien and weird.

Still hate: Nautilus, package management, general UI rough edges, ton of installed software I don't care about which just a) confuses me and b) maybe discourages people getting better stuff if it exists (possibly?)

I looked at that Elementary OS but couldn't quite figure out what it was supposed to be. Is it Linux based or grassroots design from the ground up?

@ontaiwolf - I think the amount of choice out there is baffling to new users, to be frank; people have a great deal of difficulty, in general, deciding beyond 3 different choices (google "the power of three" for some interesting psychological insights), me included. My choice is between Windows, Mac OS and Linux, and I suspect that is the choice that faces the great unwashed at large. Adding further choice here - eg. the particular weirdy flavour of Linux, followed by a subchoice of window manager, whatever the hell one of those is (again, explain it to my mother...), and it suddenly becomes so much easier to forget the entire branch and go back to thinking, Windows or Mac OS. Mac is a no brainer because there's only one choice, and for Windows you generally get what you're given.

Couldn't figure out how to get OpenJDK 7 to be the default JVM - even installing it wasn't exactly easy.

Installing is easy, just open the Software Center and search for it. You can also install OpenJDK 6 together with 7, there is no GUI to choose the default JVM but a command: sudo update-alternatives --config java

Overall though I'd say it's rather better than Ubuntu for being familiar in its ways rather than alien and weird.

It's not better. It looks like Windows a little with a panel at the bottom and a usual menu. Unity doesn't have a menu, there is the so called "dash" (with more functions than just a menu), a global menu and the launcher. It's not worse than Windows or something else, it's different, so you need to get used to it.

Still hate: Nautilus, package management, general UI rough edges, ton of installed software I don't care about which just a) confuses me and b) maybe discourages people getting better stuff if it exists (possibly?)

Nautilus: What is to hate about it? It's really easy to use but still powerful. Package managment: Seriously? You don't like a centralized repository where you can install apps easily which will also be updated automatically?Ton of software: There is not that much software at least in case of Ubuntu. Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, Epiphany (for chats), Rhythmbox and Totem (music and video), Shotwell (photo management), Software Center, Ubuntu One (Cloud), Gwibber (Twitter, Facebook), Transmission (Torrent) and some other tiny helper applications. That's it actually. And why does it discourage you? Just open the Software Center and have fun, there are also user reviews and ratings, so looking for good apps is easy.

@ontaiwolf - I think the amount of choice out there is baffling to new users, to be frank; people have a great deal of difficulty, in general, deciding beyond 3 different choices (google "the power of three" for some interesting psychological insights), me included. My choice is between Windows, Mac OS and Linux, and I suspect that is the choice that faces the great unwashed at large. Adding further choice here - eg. the particular weirdy flavour of Linux, followed by a subchoice of window manager, whatever the hell one of those is (again, explain it to my mother...), and it suddenly becomes so much easier to forget the entire branch and go back to thinking, Windows or Mac OS. Mac is a no brainer because there's only one choice, and for Windows you generally get what you're given.

Cas

In what sad world do you live? Do you choose everything from 3 choices? When you buy a car do you choose from 3 cars, 3 colors etc.? When you go to eat somewhere, you always choose from only 3 dishes? When you watch TV, you watching only 3 shows?

Ubuntu. But they forked a lot and they have own apps. The OS looks nice but I would wait for Luna release because the stable release is based on Ubuntu 10.10 which is old and not supported anymore (I think).

However, Monsanto is just nasty enough to consider it evil. They absolutely knowingly ruin the lives of many farmers, for their own profit.

If Monsanto makes a better crop that produces food more efficiently, of course it will displace others.

No, the company Monsanto doesn't work like that.

If your neighbour farmer uses Monsanto seeds, and during the next years a few seeds are blown to your plot, Monsanto owns you. You have no way out, you now must pay Monsanto a significant percentage of any money you make from your crops.

Monsanto uses maffia like strategies, putting so much stress on you that you will eventually crack and sign their contract. If you don't, they will sue your company into bankruptcy. If you have enough money to actually get legal defense, you'll lose anyway. The lobby of Monsanto is rather... powerful.

The next year, your other neighbour is 'infected' with your seeds...

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If your neighbour farmer uses Monsanto seeds, and during the next years a few seeds are blown to your plot, Monsanto owns you. You have no way out, you now must pay Monsanto a significant percentage of any money you make from your crops.

This sounds like an urban myth or a conspiracy theory.

I completely agree that a farmer who chooses to not do business with Monsanto and not voluntarily use their seeds shouldn't have to pay them money. That's a basic tenet of how our business system works.

I just don't believe this is accurate.

This is coming from the same crowd that thinks Valve and Steam are "good" while EA and Origin are "evil" and Microsoft's Halo is some enshrined work of art, while EA's Battlefield is some lens flare, dub step, evil corporation garbage.

If your neighbour farmer uses Monsanto seeds, and during the next years a few seeds are blown to your plot, Monsanto owns you. You have no way out, you now must pay Monsanto a significant percentage of any money you make from your crops.

This sounds like an urban myth or a conspiracy theory.

It indeed sounds that way. In the time it took for your to write that reply, you could also have googled on the subject. There are plenty of reports on this, from reputable news sources. I've seen documentaries about this on TV. It really is as bad as I said.

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If your neighbour farmer uses Monsanto seeds, and during the next years a few seeds are blown to your plot, Monsanto owns you. You have no way out, you now must pay Monsanto a significant percentage of any money you make from your crops.

I've actually heard other people tell me this, so I did a few quick Internet searchs.

I skimmed the judge's statement: basically, plaintiffs are suing Monsanto and requesting that the judge invalidate Monsanto's patents because of potential blow over and unintended use.

Monsanto emphatically agrees that they won't sue anyone based on trace content or unintended use of their transgenic seed.

The plaintiffs agree that none of them have been sued or harassed by Monsanto in any way, but they want to preemptively invalidate Monsanto's patents. And the judge sided with Monsanto and threw out the plaintiff's attempt to invalidate Monsanto's patents.

This sounds like a very reasonable judge, a very reasonable Monsanto, and a completely unreasonable group of people suing Monsanto and just determined to warp the facts and complain indefinitely.

For a bit more information about them, instead of refering to a single trial:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MonsantoObviously there are lots of links in there, to websites that dig deeper into these issues.

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Nobody in the games industry has to work anywhere or put themselves in the position that they have done. They have only themselves to blame. Seriously. Every single time something like that has happened to me in a job - and it always does, eventually, sometimes just a couple of weeks in to a new one - I walk.

Finally I got sick of ever having to work for anyone ever again and made the plunge and started a business. You can do it too.

Cas

Eventually, eventually.

I totally agree with this, though. If you're an engineer, you can get employed, and you can probably get paid better than your current job. I'd say just give somewhere at least a year so you don't look like you're just going to jump ship every place.

Man, I'm totally glad I derailed this thread (it wasn't on purpose BTW). Monsanto. Single handed savior of a billion lives and reasonable at lawsuits when faced by unreasonable farmers! Awesome! I haven't been so amused since I saw a report on an amusement park that had Adam & Eve frolicking with dinosaurs...cause the earth is only 10K years old, ya know.

However, Monsanto is just nasty enough to consider it evil. They absolutely knowingly ruin the lives of many farmers, for their own profit.

If Monsanto makes a better crop that produces food more efficiently, of course it will displace others.

No, the company Monsanto doesn't work like that.

If your neighbour farmer uses Monsanto seeds, and during the next years a few seeds are blown to your plot, Monsanto owns you. You have no way out, you now must pay Monsanto a significant percentage of any money you make from your crops.

Monsanto uses maffia like strategies, putting so much stress on you that you will eventually crack and sign their contract. If you don't, they will sue your company into bankruptcy. If you have enough money to actually get legal defense, you'll lose anyway. The lobby of Monsanto is rather... powerful.

The next year, your other neighbour is 'infected' with your seeds...

I just imagine a farmer who works for Apple getting sued by Monsanto. It would be a legal battle to end all legal battles.

I have no idea about the planet age stuff, but I just checked and the bottom window grab area is about 2-pixels on the box I'm running. Science!

EDIT: It's 1:30am and I can't sleep, so applying the scientific method I'd determined that all other edges suck just as bad and the only remotely easy way to modify a window's size is with the top corners. I've not modified anything about the GUI because I never do. I've taken a quick look around and I have to say: this is awful. If you don't run a shell, what's the user experience point of this? (and since I can run a shell under windows, double-plus what's the point?) I mean everything I've looked at has been so dummied down that I'm not finding anything of use. Thankfully I don't care about any of this garbage and I'll now return to ignoring all of it.

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